(The following statement was prepared by
experts on the situation in Yugoslavia whom we believe to be reliable.
We think it will interest your readers. —Noam Chomsky, MIT; Robert
S.Cohen, Boston University)

A. Background

1949-1950. A new generation of young philosophers and social
theorists, many of whom took active part in the liberation war
(1941-1945), graduated and assumed teaching positions at the
universities of Belgrade and Zagreb. They appeared on the scene during
Yugoslavia's resistance to Stalin's attempts to dominate the country.
They were mostly Marxists, but from the beginning they opposed
Stalinist dogmatism and emphasized freedom of research, humanism,
openness to all important achievements of present-day science and
culture.

1950-1960. A decade of discussions on basic theoretical
issues, organized by the Yugoslav philosophical association. The
debates were quite free; several groups opposed one another on
different grounds. By the end of this period they all realigned along
two basic lines, the orthodox one which stayed within the traditional
framework of dialectical materialism and which considered theory to be
essentially a reflection of the objective social situation and
material surroundings, and the humanist one which emphasized the
anticipatory and critical character of theory, its unity with praxis,
and its great role in the process of humanization of a given society.

1960. At a conference in Bled, the humanist, praxis-oriented
trend prevailed and subsequently became dominant in Yugoslav
universities, journals, institutes.

1962. Yugoslav society experienced its first postwar
stagnation as a result of an unsuccessful attempt to make its currency
convertible. At the biannual meeting of the Yugoslav philosophical
association in Skopje, November, 1962, the view was expressed for the
first time that it is urgent to go beyond abstract theoretical
discussion about the nature of man and knowledge, about alienation and
freedom, and the relation between philosophy and science—and toward a
more concrete, critical study of Yugoslav society, guided by general
humanist insights.

1963. A series of conferences and discussions with the
attempt to clarify some general social issues: the meaning of
technology, of freedom and democracy, of social progress, of the role
of culture in building a socialist society. In August, the Korcula
Summer School was founded by Zagreb and Belgrade philosophers and
sociologists, with the purpose of organizing free international summer
discussions on actual social issues.

1964. The journal Praxis was founded by the same
group. A new series of discussions, this time about sensitive issues
of Yugoslav society: the meaning and perspective of socialism,
bureaucratic and authoritarian tendencies in the party and the state
apparatus, advantages and weaknesses of the existing forms of
self-management and its possibilities for further development, the
right of a minority to continue to defend its views rather than
conforming to the views of the majority.

Most of these critical views and ideas seemed compatible with the
liberal Program of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (accepted at
the Seventh Congress, 1958), but in reality were met with intolerance
by alarmed party leaders. The transition from criticism of Stalinism
toward a concrete critical analysis of Yugoslav society led to an
almost complete break of communication between party officials and
leading Marxist social and political philosophers.

1965-1967. While preserving a political system far more
elitist and authoritarian than a developed system of participatory
democracy could tolerate, the political leadership introduced an
economic reform that was to fail: returning to a nineteenth-century
model of a laissez-faire economy, leaving the Yugoslav economy at the
mercy of big foreign firms in the "free competition" at the
international market, causing mass unemployment and huge foreign
debts, allowing speculation in real estate and a rapid increase of
social differences, encouraging the growth of autarchic tendencies in
the existing six republics of the Yugoslav federation—which later
constituted a material basis for strong nationalist movements.

Expression of critical views about these developments (themselves
later condemned as manifestations of "liberalism" and "nationalism" by
the party itself) was met by growing hostility by the party press.
Critical philosophers and sociologists were branded "abstract
humanists," "utopians," "revisionists," "anarcho-liberals,"
"neoleftists," "extreme leftists," finally, "political opposition that
aspires to political power."

1968. In June, students of the University of Belgrade
occupied all university buildings for seven days. They demanded
abolition of bureaucratic privileges, further democratization,
solution of the problem of mass unemployment, reduction of social
differences, university reform.

In one of his speeches during the crisis, Tito praised the
students, endorsed all their demands, and declared he would resign if
he failed to realize them.

Later, when this grave political crisis was over, the political
leadership and Tito himself came to the conclusion that philosophers
were responsible for it because through their lectures they had
"corrupted their students," "poisoned them with wrong ideas," and thus
produced the student movement. The party organization at the
Department of Philosophy and Sociology in Belgrade was dissolved. For
the first time, Tito expressed the demand that further corruption "of
students through their professors must be prevented," and that guilty
professors must be ousted from the university.

1969-1972. Growing pressure was exerted by the Central Party
leadership on lower-level political institutions to find a way to
eliminate the professors. But this was a difficult task. Yugoslavia
had developed a democratic organization of education and culture. All
decision-making power in matters of electing, re-electing and
promoting university professors was in the hands of the faculty
councils—the autonomous, self-managing bodies composed of professors,
assistants, and students themselves. The university law emphasized
scholarly qualification as the sole criterion of election. It did not
give political authorities any right to interfere.

In the previous period, the officially declared policy of the
League of Communists (LC) was that all theoretical controversies
should be cleared up through discussion and free exchange of opinion.
Therefore the rather democratically-minded leadership of the LC in
Serbia resisted the use of repressive measures against some of the
leading philosophers and sociologists of the country. They were,
however, refused access to mass media and mass gatherings, and the
possibilities for circulating their ideas became much more limited.
Still, they were able to teach, to travel abroad, to have 300-400
participants from various countries at the Summer School of Korcula,
to publish the journals Praxis and Filosofija, and
occasionally to publish a book or two.

The time was used to develop a cluster of fairly sophisticated and
concrete theories about socialism and social revolution, integral
self-management, the phenomenon of bureaucratism, humanization of
technology, democratic direction of economy and culture, the problem
of nationalism, etc.

Fall, 1972. Tito ousted the leader of the League of
Communists of Serbia, Marko Nikezic, and a number of his supporters.
They were blamed for "liberal" practices and for opposing the new
party line. The main feature of this new line was the return to a
strong, disciplined, centralized, "monolithic" party that has the
right and power directly to control and manage the realization of its
policies. This called for complete ideological unity, consequently for
a return to a crude form of ideological indoctrination, and for the
abandonment of all former sophisticated ideas of creating new
socialist consciousness through dialogues or struggles of opinion and
patient persuasion.

The Faculty of Philosophy was now exposed to
intense pressure. There were rumors of enemies, foreign spies on the
teaching faculty; there were threats of stopping further financing, of
closing the faculty. The faculty building was equipped with hidden
microphones, some of which were found. The University Committee of the
League of Communists drew up a list of eight professors to be fired.
Passports were confiscated from five of them. Portions of some of
their recently published books were banned. Some collaborators of the
journal Praxis were arrested and sentenced to jail.

At that moment dozens of internationally known philosophers and
social scientists from Scandinavia, USA, Germany, France, and other
countries wrote letters to Tito and the rectors of the universities of
Belgrade and Zagreb, expressing their concern about those repressive
measures and the hope that they would be discontinued in the interest
of the further free development of Yugoslav democratic socialism. Many
philosophical associations, departments of philosophy, academies,
international institutions devoted to human rights and civil liberties
passed resolutions of concern and sent them to Yugoslavia.

This discreet expression of solidarity of the international
intellectual community made a considerable impact on Yugoslav
authorities who were proud of their past international reputation and
who, in the existing economic and foreign-political situation of the
country, could not afford to disregard world public opinion. They
decided to take their time and to give repression a more democratic
appearance.

B. Recent Developments

Slowly crushing the resistance of the Faculty of Philosophy without
provoking too much international publicity required a series of steps.
Some of these were easy, some were met with unexpected difficulties or
even failed completely.

It was relatively easy to introduce certain important changes into
existing university law. The law as now amended requires a university
professor not only to have scholarly and moral qualifications but also
to be politically acceptable. Political organizations now have the
right to initiate a procedure in order to establish whether any
individual university teacher meets political criteria.

A third change was a general and vague limitation of the principle
of self-management. While heretofore the vast majority of the members
of the faculty councils had to be elected by the faculty and students
themselves, now the law prescribed that the composition of the council
had to be determined through a "self-managing agreement" between the
faculty and its founder—the Republican Executive Council (i.e., the
government of the given Federal Republic).

The next step was to translate those legal changes into more
specific and practical demands. The plan was first to specify
political criteria for being a university professor in such a way that
they could be applied to ousting the eight Belgrade professors, who
previously could not be removed; second to push the party
organization and the students' organization into condemning their
colleagues and teachers; third to compel the University of
Belgrade to accept a sufficient number of outside voting members into
the councils so as to enable political authorities to gain full
control over the decision-making process in the Faculty of Philosophy.

These measures met with considerable resistance. When a text of
Criteria for the Election of University Professors was first proposed
to the University Assembly in June, 1973, most speakers objected
strongly to it. They found certain criteria too rigid, for example the
requirement that a university professor must accept Marxism and
actively support the politics of the League of Communists in his
lectures and in all his scholarly and public activity. But later the
Rector of the University, most deans, and eventually the University
Assembly succumbed to the pressure, and in November accepted the text
of the Criteria.

Only the Faculty of Philosophy rejected it, and gave the following
grounds, among others: it was unconstitutional because the existing
constitution guarantees freedom of scientific work and cultural
creation and forbids any kind of pressure on individuals to declare
what kind of beliefs they have; it was unacceptable because the vast
majority of Belgrade University professors are not Marxists and are
apolitical; it was discriminatory because it allows, by its vagueness,
any conceivable kind of interpretation; and it was discriminatory also
because these Criteria were being imposed on the University of
Belgrade only, and not on any other Yugoslav university.

In May, 1973, the Belgrade University committee of
the League of Communists sent an open letter to the party organization
of the Faculty of Philosophy, demanding the ouster of eight
professors: Mihailo Marković, Ljubomir Tadić, Svetozar Stojanović,
Zaga Pešić, Miladin Zivotić, Dragoljub Mićunović, Nebojša Popov, Triva
Indijić. After a series of meetings, attended by a large number of
higher-ranking party officials who exerted great pressure on students
and professors to conform to the demand, the party organization of the
Faculty of Philosophy nevertheless rejected the ouster demand. A few
of the most active opponents were expelled from the party, but when
the party organization of the faculty met again in November, it
decided, again unanimously, that the eight professors should stay at
the faculty. There was a complete conviction that a university
professor cannot be fired for expressing critical views in his
writings, especially taking into account that the party itself now was
repeating many of the criticisms that were expressed by those same
scholars several years ago.

In November, 1973, a university committee of the student
organization made an attempt to force students of the Faculty of
Philosophy into action against their professors, threatening them with
possible violence if the faculty continued to resist. But the
philosophy students refused to undertake anything of the sort and, on
the contrary, to everyone's surprise, organized a street demonstration
(although strictly forbidden in recent years, and in the past
forcefully dispersed by the police). This time, students protested
against repression in Greece and against the massacre in the
University of Athens. There was no violence.

The crucial issue during the last six months has been the
composition of the faculty councils. Self-management in the university
meant that even in the institutions of special social importance, such
as educational ones, only a small number of outside members were
nominated by political authorities. Now the executive council (the
government) of the Serbian Republic demanded that half the members of
the faculty councils must be nominated from outside the university.
Taking into account that students and administration must also be
represented in the councils, this would give only one sixth of the
votes to both professors and assistants and would clearly replace
self-management by compulsory management.

By October, after initial resistance, the Reactor
of the university and all faculties except the Faculty of Philosophy
succumbed to the pressure. They were told that this new structure had
been prescribed by the university law and therefore could not be a
matter of debate. As a matter of fact the law only prescribed that the
composition of the faculty councils had to be determined through a
"self-managing agreement" between the faculty and its founder (the
Republic's executive council). The Faculty of Philosophy refused to
sign the agreement because it was unconstitutional and incompatible
with the principle of self-management, and because the very concept of
agreement involves negotiation. The faculty asked the Constitutional
Court to decide about the legitimacy of the imposed "agreement." At
the same time, the faculty also drew up a counterproposal. But there
was no negotiation and communication was broken.

An extremely abusive campaign was launched against the Faculty of
Philosophy through the party newspaper Komunist, as well as
through the press, radio, and TV. The faculty was accused of opposing
the introduction of "self-management" at the university, of opposing
the policy of the League of Communists, of keeping a monopoly on
education, and of opposing any influence from "society," of asking
help from foreign scholars, etc. At the same time the faculty was
threatened with expulsion from the University of Belgrade, with
refusal to finance its further activity or to employ its graduated
students, and with eventual closing down.

Under growing pressure of this kind, the Faculty Council decided on
December 14, 1973, to authorize its Dean to sign the "self-managing
agreement."

C. The Present Situation

The Faculty Council will now have half of its members nominated by
political authorities. They will certainly be carefully selected from
among leading political officials and disciplined members of the
League of Communists. They will surely pose the question of removing
the eight professors from the Department of Philosophy and Sociology
as they do not meet the recently accepted political criteria. The
political leadership will obviously press to clear the situation up
before the Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in the
spring.

It may still not be an easy task. According to law, assistants are
re-elected every three years, associate professors and assistant
professors every five years—which means that legally one would have to
wait for the expiration of that period for each candidate. Full
professors do not undergo the process of re-election at all (i.e.,
they have tenure), which means that two among the eight (Marković and
Tadić) cannot at this time legally be removed at all.

Another important circumstance is also that the party organization
of the Faculty of Philosophy—whose opinion counts when it comes to
political evaluation—has never agreed to condemn, or endorse the
elimination of, any one from the group.

A relevant fact is that the threatened scholars enjoy a
considerable reputation in the university and among other
intellectuals. The action against them is not popular and, despite
great efforts, the apparatus of the League of Communists was not able
to find any well-known Yugoslav philosopher, sociologist, or political
scientist to attack them.

The crucial questions are now (1) whether the outside members of
the council will be disciplined enough by the government to perform
according to their orders when they face their victims in the council;
and (2) whether some of the inner members of the council, professors
from various other departments of the Faculty of Philosophy, will
yield to pressure and eventually vote for the firing of their
colleagues.

Neither development is inevitable, but both are possible. Without
strong political pressure many outside members would—as in the
past—not even attend the meetings, or would be passive or vote with
the rest. Thus everything will now depend on how brutal the effort
will be and how far the political authorities will go in pressing the
members of the council. Meanwhile, during the past six months several
of the eight philosophers under attack have again been deprived of
their passports.

D. Call for Action

The degree of pressure will depend on whether the whole thing will
pass in silence as a little episode in one of the world's many
universities, or whether it will be understood for what it is: one of
the last battles for survival of free, critical, progressive thought
in the present-day socialist world, in a country which is still open
to democratic development and where until recently it seemed to have
every chance to flourish.

That is where the reaction of the international intellectual
community may again play a decisive role. The whole political and
economic position of Yugoslavia makes it sensitive to world public
opinion. By showing an interest in what is going on now in Yugoslav
cultural life, by spreading the information, by raising the issue in
international organizations, by expressing concern and protest in the
press or in letters to Tito (which, after the recent escalation,
should have more resolute and sharp form than previous ones), scholars
and intellectuals everywhere could help to relax the present grip of
the Yugoslav leadership and induce it to live up somewhat better to
its own ideology of self-management and socialist democracy.

All the repressive measures so far have not sufficed fully to
isolate and suffocate Yugoslav philosophy. But this might well happen
in the weeks to come if the scholarly world will tolerate the further
escalation of brutality and fear in a country that until not long ago
has been an island of hope for many.